


Changes

by plain_jane08 (awolfling)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Depression, M/M, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 05:04:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/427175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awolfling/pseuds/plain_jane08
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock dies John doesn’t grieve. What he experiences is far worse than that. There are no stages to work through. There is no getting better. John just stops. (Written before season 2 came out)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Changes

  
When Sherlock dies John doesn’t grieve. What he experiences is far worse than that. There are no stages to work through. There is no getting better. John just stops.  
  
Every day is just as hard as the last. Everyday the absence of Sherlock is felt so keenly that John can barely stand under the weight of it all. He doesn’t pack up Sherlock’s things, not because he hopes Sherlock might miraculously come back, but because John can’t bare the thought of losing anymore of Sherlock than he already has.  
  
John hasn’t cried since that first night in hospital when Mycroft brought the news of Sherlock’s death. John’s response to Mycroft was “Yes, I thought that might be it,” and then he waited to be alone. Once Mycroft had left and the nurses and doctors had seen to him for the night, John let himself feel. He sobbed harder than he thought was possible and it made him ache, jarring his injuries sustained during the explosion in the pool. The pool where Sherlock had died.  
  
John doesn’t allow himself to cry again. It hurts far too much.  
  
John goes back to work and it is only then that he realises that he hasn’t spoken to Sarah since before The Pool. They don’t continue their relationship, and John is surprised that they don’t even need to have a conversation about it. Perhaps Sarah has seen how broken he is. She must know how incapable he has become. Still, she is a good person, and remains his friend. Or, as much as someone can remain friends with the husk of a person that John has become.  
  
The days blur into each other for John. Nothing happens. Wake up, shower, eat, go to work, come home, eat, sleep, nightmares, wake up, shower, eat, go to work. There is no difference except that each day John feels less and less. The only thing that remains in his emotional capacity is the terrible feeling of the gnawing, aching hole where Sherlock used to be.  
  
Lestrade tries to check up on John. He is a good sort of bloke and he handles John with more care than John had expected. Except John doesn’t want handling and Lestrade has his own life to see to and eventually he stops coming around and John doesn’t mind because maybe Lestrade makes things harder, makes him miss Sherlock more, or maybe Lestrade makes things easier because sometimes he is just normal enough and just fantastic enough to make John forget that Sherlock is even missing. Both of those scenarios are unacceptable.  
  
Mrs Hudson has learnt to leave him alone. She empathises with him, certainly, but she won’t put up with John’s constant snapping and downright rudeness to her. So she just leaves him be.  
  
John doesn’t speak to Harry. She is far too absorbed in her own wrecked life to worry about John’s. And John can’t tell whether he is relieved to be left alone or angry that his sister is so selfish. Maybe neither. It doesn’t matter anyway.  
  
The first anniversary of Sherlock’s death is awful. John has forgotten how sharp he can hurt when he’s gotten used to the constant ache of missing Sherlock. He takes the day off work; Sarah understands. He sits in Sherlock’s room, trying to fill the space that Sherlock has left. He is a poor substitute. He leaves the room that night with a shirt that Sherlock had left on the floor. John imagines it still smells like him. John dreams that night that Sherlock lies beside him, has John wrapped in his arms, that he has never left. He kisses John and tells him he loves him and John can’t remember when last he’s felt so safe and happy. That dream is worse than any nightmare.  
  
The second anniversary of Sherlock’s death is spent in the same way.  
  
So is the third.  
  
It is after that dream that John realises he is in love with Sherlock. He isn’t sure when it started, maybe that first night when John shot the cabbie. John spares a moment to laugh bitterly at himself. What a pathetic human being he is.  
  
John tries not to think of all the things he’s missed out on. There’s no point in dwelling on the fact that he’ll never get to kiss Sherlock, that he’ll never know what Sherlock looks like when he comes, that he’ll never know what it’s like to be held by him, to hold him. None of that matters when compared to the fact that he’ll never even see Sherlock again. John doesn’t even have a picture of him.  
  
In between nightmares, John dreams about having sex with Sherlock. Sometimes he wakes up hard, though not often, and he can’t bring himself to touch himself because it won’t be Sherlock’s hand and what business does John have experiencing pleasure when he can never share it with the man he wants.  
  
John knows he’s pathetic. He knows he’s not coping, just functioning. He knows that people have been through far worse than him and they still have the ability to laugh and smile and move on with their lives. John could move on if he wanted, he could put himself into that mindset. He chooses not to, though, because he can’t leave Sherlock behind. John can’t stand the thought that one day he might not hurt when he thinks of Sherlock, or worse, that one day he might not think of Sherlock at all. John would prefer to stay in this awful limbo than experience any sort of happiness without Sherlock.  
  
John knows it’s not healthy. He’s heard the pleas of the people around him to heal, Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Sarah, even Mycroft, they’ve all tried to help him. But John doesn’t want any help.  
  
Sometimes John wonders why he bothers to stay alive at all. Dying must be far easier than living in this kind of pain. But John never follows through with his thoughts because someone needs to be alive to remember Sherlock and John doesn’t trust anyone else. The task is far too precious.  
  
+  
  
One day John goes mad.  
  
It’s a few weeks after the third anniversary and John is sitting on the couch, a tray of food on his lap. Another evening meal that may as well be sawdust for all the joy it gives him.   
  
And then Sherlock walks in.  
  
And John knows he’s finally lost it because there is no way Sherlock is alive and that’s the only other conclusion John can come to. It answers a question John has been wondering about all his life, apparently mad people do know when they’re going mad. Or at least John does.  
  
John begins shaking because hallucination or not, seeing Sherlock is a fucking shock. The hallucination walks over to him and John is surprised to see how much older Sherlock looks and John can’t believe his mind even considered aging when creating this fantasy. The hallucination puts his tray to the side and gathers John up in his arms and John is struck by how solid and warm the hallucination is and it rips open the wound that the loss of Sherlock created, widens it even, because this is the closest John will ever come to being with Sherlock.  
  
“You’re not real,” John croaks, voice rough with suppressed emotion.  
  
“I am,” Sherlock’s voice rumbles and _oh god_ how John has missed that voice, that dark purr.  
  
“You’re dead,” John whispers.  
  
“No,” Sherlock replies, “Just gone for a while. Too long. It was safer that way, for you.”  
  
John shakes his head. This can’t be real. It’s far too perfect, for Sherlock to be back. Nothing can ever be that perfect, not for John.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Sherlock says, squeezing John, “I’m so sorry I had to lie.”  
  
And John is so confused now because this is so real, the feel of Sherlock against him, the sound of his voice. How can a hallucination be this accurate? Yet how can it be real?  
  
“I can’t-” John stutters, “I don’t-”  
  
Sherlock pulls back and John gets a better look at him, devours him with his eyes. Sherlock has new lines around his mouth and eyes, not wrinkles exactly, he’s far too young still, but the lines earned by hardship and devastation. John knows he has similar lines. His hair is slightly longer than when John last saw him, beautiful dark curls but greying now, around the temples. He’s thinner and this sends a jolt of worry through John.  
  
John looks at Sherlock watching him, stares into the eyes he’d never thought he’d see again. John hadn’t been able to remember if Sherlock’s eyes were grey or blue and it had worried him endlessly. Now John saw they were both, shades of grey and blue swirling together.  
  
It’s the look in Sherlock’s eyes that make John believe this is reality, that this is actually Sherlock in front of him. He doesn’t know why, but it does. Sherlock isn’t dead.  
  
The emotion hits John like a wave and carries him out to sea in a dangerous riptide. He’s feeling too much at once to stay afloat. Anger that Sherlock lied to him, that John had to experience so much pain when Sherlock wasn’t even dead. Relief that Sherlock is alive. Hope that there’s a chance of letting Sherlock know just how much John loves him. Scared for the same reason. Confusion that Sherlock is even there. Completely thrown off balance that within the space of minutes Sherlock has gone from being dead to being alive. And so much more that John doesn’t even have a name for.  
  
For the first time in over three years, John cries. Great big body shuddering sobs that leave him barely able to breathe. He grabs and clings to Sherlock, unable to do anything more because just _feeling_ is so overwhelming that John almost prays to pass out just to make it stop. But Sherlock’s there, holding him, grounding him and when John’s finally wrung out, when he’s finished crying out three years worth of absolute heartache the only thing that’s left is a feeling of safeness.  
  
Somehow they make it up to John’s bedroom, into John’s bed and John wants so badly to have sex with Sherlock, to show him just how much John loves him, but John is feeling far too wrecked to get even the beginnings of an erection and maybe that’s for the best because Sherlock is looking taut and tired and John doesn’t even know if Sherlock feels the same way about him and John is far too exhausted to even thinks about these things right now.  
  
+  
  
When John wakes up Sherlock is still there and John knows once and for all that this is real, because Sherlock’s never stayed with him after a dream before. And if it isn’t real, John is quite happy to live in this non-reality with Sherlock anyway. John snuggles up to Sherlock, taking full advantage of his presence after so long without him.   
  
When Sherlock wakes up they talk. Sherlock explains to him how he hunted down everyone in Moriarty’s network that was a threat, how he wanted to keep John safe. Sherlock doesn’t say, but John can see, just how hard these last three years have been on him. It makes John feel better to know that Sherlock suffered as much as he did, and immediately feels a little mean for thinking that.   
  
The years have changed Sherlock, softened him in some places, hardened him in others. John knows he is different too. It frightens him that they might not fit anymore, that their changes won’t be compatible. They are both haunted.  
  
Yet, perhaps it binds them together in a way that could never have happened before. Maybe it is a blessing. John may not have realised that he loved Sherlock if Sherlock hadn’t died. John might have settled down with some woman, had children, drifted apart from Sherlock, gotten used to civilian life. And this new Sherlock is more free with his emotions than the old one was. More tactile too, because while they’ve been talking Sherlock hasn’t stopped touching John. Sometimes you don’t know what you have until it’s gone and that’s true for the both of them.  
  
John and Sherlock have a new beginning now. They can remake their worlds however they choose.   
  
They decide to remake their world together.


End file.
